My grandmother’s girl crush on Dolores Del Rio, Lord Byron, Pat O’Brien, and a scowling Lloyd Bacon.

Thank you to my dear pal, Debbie Archibald from Montreal, who sent me a link to one of my grandmother Mitzi’s Photoplay articles from 1938.

This particular story featured the sublime Dolores Del Rio and thanks to a clear case of girl crush, Mitzi started with a portion of a Lord Byron poem, ‘She Walks in Beauty,’ as follows:

She walks in beauty, like the night
of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes…

Nailed it!

While the article didn’t use the photo below – this one is from 1935 – I thought I would share it with you because she looks utterly stunning. And how about that gown and jewelry – aren’t they just divine? I always wonder where these things are now… How about you?

So here’s Mitzi on assignment visiting the set of ‘In Caliente’ (1935) with Dolores Del Rio, actor Pat O’Brien, and director Lloyd Bacon, who’s looking rather gruff. The musical numbers were choreographed by Busby Berkeley and it was released by Warner Bros.

Of course, Dolores Del Rio was also married to Cedric Gibbons, the long time art director of MGM, who also, legend has it, sketched out the Oscar statuette on a napkin while at lunch at the Biltmore Hotel. Their home in Santa Monica was a study in Art Deco perfection.

I am forever grateful to Archive.org and the Media History Project for digitizing these old fan magazines – what a wealth of history just at our fingertips.

Here’s the link to the Photoplay magazine if you’d like to look through it too.

Connect with me on Facebook and Twitter!

Copyright 2017 Alicia Mayer. All rights reserved.